You know that scene in MI: Rogue Nation where Ethan Hunt holds his breath forever and totally kills the suspension of disbelief?

Turns out he actually held his breath for that long! 😳.

Escape Plan 2:
Yeah that was a real let down. I loved the first but felt no connection at all to any of these people. The main bad guy was a snooze, Batista kind of sucks at anything non guardians of the Galaxy, and I don't know, the movie just couldn't keep my interest.

Annihilation:
Loved it. So unique and a visual stunner. Easily a top 10 of the year so far.

The babysitter:
I thought it was very funny. Had a bit of a kind of R-rated Goosebumps feel to it.

Teenage Cocktail:
I liked it but it was a little to much coming of age and not as dark and uncomfortable as I was expecting given the description. I still liked it I just thought they could have really went in another direction and it would have been better.

Where is keyra:
Disappointed. I think it suffers from a very very slow build that really builds to nothing. I was just left with the "is that it" look on my face once it faded to black.

Ace Ventura Pet Detective - Recently we did the Jim Carrey countdown and my biggest take-away is that it's been well over two decades since I saw some of his more iconic roles. On one hand, it's impressive a movie was able to make such an impression, I can still remember seeing it, on the other, I was a kid so what would I know. As it turns out, I was probably the right demographic, because there's a lot of jokes in here that seem like they belong in a cartoon. They're not really clever, witty or well-timed, they're just silly or absurdist. The film relies heavily on Carrey's performance and while it was a smash-hit because it was so fresh and out there, compared to his other roles it's really hit or miss. If a movie like Ace Ventura was released now, it'd be straight on Netflix and quickly forgotten about.

Which is a shame, because the story itself is so zany it actually works. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of a movie like Wayne's World, where they took this gimmick and blew it up into a fun compelling movie. The Pet Detective shtick seems like something you'd see on SNL and the plot they come up with is so zany and out there, it's hard not to get hooked. Reading through the countdown thread, I agree the mental hospital sequence is one of the highlights, but I also enjoy the sequence where Ace visits the Finkles and the mother is a complete fruit loop and any sequence where Ace gets to show up the police is great too. One of my favourite scenes is when Aguado is giving him stick and squashes a cockroach right in-front of him and Ace's response, brutal.

I think that's why I'd consider it above average. Sure, it isn't what I'd consider a good movie, but certainly a star-making movie with plenty going for it.

So I decided to have a lazy Sunday, and watched a couple movies on Netflix.

The first was Baywatch, which was surprisingly better than I thought it would be, not quite what I was expecting, but I liked it. I also checked out the newest Ghostbusters movie, hot garbage, would not recommend the movie to anyone.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri - I found it finally streaming on HBO so I gave it a watch and thought it was utterly fantastic. I don't understand some of the criticisms of this movie around Oscar time. I thought it was a brilliant screenplay with some great performances (Rockwell is a boss) and McDormand is great per usual.

My only gripe was Harrelsons wife , why the fuck she had to be young enough to be his daughter and British is beyond me. Those scenes were really weird but it wasn't enough to bring down the rest of the movie for me. Again I thought it was brilliant.

Aug 14, 2018 14:03:11 GMT UT said:

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri - I found it finally streaming on HBO so I gave it a watch and thought it was utterly fantastic. I don't understand some of the criticisms of this movie around Oscar time. I thought it was a brilliant screenplay with some great performances (Rockwell is a boss) and McDormand is great per usual.

My only gripe was Harrelsons wife , why the fuck she had to be young enough to be his daughter and British is beyond me. Those scenes were really weird but it wasn't enough to bring down the rest of the movie for me. Again I thought it was brilliant.

Wife? Are you posting from UT's account again?

I had the exact same gripe about Harrelson's wife... WTF was that about?

Wife needs to post more so we can gush over movies.

Yeah it really kind of just made their relationship awkward for me as opposed to making me care. Which is fine , she wasn't that important to the actual movie and Harrelson was already likeable enough without her. And it's even made weirder by the fact that consistently poke fun at the ex husband being with a girl far too young for him. That was a really fucking weird casting decision and one that I'm not sure was made intended to make Harrelson seem younger or the wife seem older.

Rockwell though just killed it , he ended up being my favorite part of the movie. Fun fact: One half of the duo that inspired our Top Ten looks like he could be Rockwells twin. It's really eery.

Aug 14, 2018 14:03:11 GMT UT said:

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri - I found it finally streaming on HBO so I gave it a watch and thought it was utterly fantastic. I don't understand some of the criticisms of this movie around Oscar time. I thought it was a brilliant screenplay with some great performances (Rockwell is a boss) and McDormand is great per usual.

My only gripe was Harrelsons wife , why the fuck she had to be young enough to be his daughter and British is beyond me. Those scenes were really weird but it wasn't enough to bring down the rest of the movie for me. Again I thought it was brilliant.

Abbie Cornish is Australian, so it’s her natural accent not British.
(Side note: we went to the same school )



The Spy who dumped me:
Pretty decent for a movie my gf dragged me along to. Cut out the jarring mentions of feminism throughout the film and it’s a good rental film. Mila Kunis makes up for the lead being a little much.

Pitch Perfect 3:
I loved the first.  Thought the 2nd wasn't as good but I still liked it.  The third installment felt like it was just limping to the finish line.  Hailee Steinfeld can only bring the movie up so much.  Everything just felt flat to me.  

Open House:
Horrible.  Very slow "thriller" and the build to the finale was awful.  The ending is surprising but surprising isn't always good.  While it was surprising it was also flat.  

Happy Death Day:
I liked it and I wasn't expecting anything.  It was fun for what it was.  It didn't take itself to seriously which was the key to it's success to me.  

A Quite Place:
I liked it.  I think making it into a sequel is a mistake but as a stand alone it was good.  Unique premise that built tension very well.  

The Sea and Poison (1986; Kei Kumai)

Recently I bought the Shenmue I and II HD pack for the PlayStation 4. They're a pair of adventure games based on rural Japan in 1986 and they're incredibly immersive, especially since the first game was released in 1999. To commemorate the occassion, I decided to do some additional viewing and catch some movies that would have been doing the rounds at the time to get a sense of the pop culture. In the end, I landed on this.

The Sea and Poison tells a story about an inquiry into the vivisections of US Soldiers in a struggling Japanese hospital. The film is structured on a series of interviews that put the attrocity into it's needed context and explores the humanity of the surgeon involved. For what it's worth, before this film, I had never heard of a vivisection. The most simple explanation I can provide is that it's experimental surgery performed on animals intended for medical breakthroughs. I'm sure there's a better explanation out there, but in the contest of the film it suffices.

The film is told from three separate perspectives, the lead protaganist Sugoro, his cold co-worker Toda (played by Ken Watanabe of Last Samurai & Inception fame) and Ueda a nurse who works at the hospital. They tell the story of Dr. Hashimoto the heir apparent to the vacant Dean position who is under intense pressure to claim the position. In a bid to ensure he gets the position, he starts cutting corners and comprimising his medical ethics.

The first major example of this is during the surgery on Mrs. Tabe. In one of the most memorable sequence of the film, we're shown every gritty detail of her lung surgery and watch on in horror as the doctors botch the surgery. Instead of simply calling her time of death then and there, Hashimoto cooks up a scheme where they declare the surgery a success and pretend she died hours afterwards due to unforseen complications.

As the film progresses, we see more comprimises where Hashimoto puts his own reputation before the well-being of the patients, as well as the demoralising impact the war is having on the staff. For Sugoro he is becoming an emotional wreck while Toda becomes even more sociopathic as the film progresses. It all comes to a head when the Japanese military puts forward an idea to Hashimoto. For his co-operation, they will put their support behind Hashimoto to become the Dean. The catch is he must perform deadly experimental operations on a bunch of captured US soldiers. The doctors try to put their minds at ease, convincing themselves they were going to die regardless, but it's still a messed up situation.

And once again, we're shown the procedure and how inhumane the act is. The victim has a child-like naivety and suffers greatly as the doctors half-ass the anasthetic and refuse to treat him like a regular patient. The sequence lasts a long time and ultimately as the audience, you relate to Soguro's character who is trapped in the room, unable to look at the procedure, just looking to get away from the nightmare.

As the film wraps up and we see the nurses wheel the bodies of the dead patients out, one by one, and set them aside on the ground, we're informed that the 25 staff involved were sentenced to death but ultimately exonerated following the developments in Korea.

It's definitely not the type of movie you want to watch if you're looking for a pick-me up. However, this was an incredibly well made movie. I was blown away by the special effects for the surgery scene and found the overall tone of the movie really effective. It's a movie I had never heard of, but I hope I've passed it on.

I also caught Deadpool 2 which was OK. A couple of laughs here and there but the story felt lacking. I'd liken it to a Rick and Morty spoof of Looper, similar premise but not as deep or creative. Outside of seeing Julian Dennison get more work after his killer role in the Hunt For Wilder People, I wasn't feeling anything until the credits rolled. The movie seemed too mean-spirited up until that point and then it set everything right.

BlackKklansman

Fantastic film, IF you cut out the stuff not relating to the film at the end. I knew it was a Spike Lee film and I thought the one dig at Trump was it...then the “after credits” hit.

I’d highly recommend if the film just ended and rolled credits.

Finally caught Hardcore Henry, it's a spiffy little movie, can be a bit disorienting at times (didn't help my insomnia has been kicking my ass the last couple months). Sharlto Copely gets to have fun playing a myriad of eccentric characters, some good effects if you're into gore. Much like Upgrade, it's not genre defining or earth shaking, just a good quality sci-fi that makes the best of its premise. 4/5

Slender Man

Terrible cash grab film, most stuff in trailer isn’t in film.
Have seen better direct to DVD stuff.

Baby Driver lived up to the hype.

I have not watched any horror movies since last October, I guess as I get older I am just not in the mood for those types of movies ever. I did watch the Stepfather trilogy recently though because it's on Amazon Prime(the DVD's have become hard to find, the ones I have found are a little more pricey than I'd like to pay for them, I have no problem just going for the VHS tapes for movies like this especially since they are cheaper).

The first Stepfather is definitely the best one. I fucking love Terry O'Quinn's performance as the stepfather. Stepfather II is not as well made but maybe a little more fun. Some really hilarious dark comedy moments that had me rolling, just a good time all around.

I just watched Stepfather III for the first time in ages(probably since I was a kid). Definitely a step down from the first 2 but I still really like it. They brought in another actor to replace O'Quinn but they did a good job in making it work with the story being that he gets a face transplant like some shit out of a 1940's movie. They kept the character true to form and really piled on the cheese, also some really funny moments both intentional and unintentional. Great trilogy, I like my horror movies like this. Fuck a bunch of CGI jumpscare bullshit that takes itself too seriously.

Just watched Mortal Kombat with my 3 year old neice. She loves monsters and i figured it was time to introduce her to Goro, plus with a pg 13 rating i figured this would be a nice tame movie to watch with her. She absolutely loved it, her reaction to Scorpion unmasking to reveal his skull was fucking priceless haha, that was a bad ass scene that i totally forgot about. Good times.

Watched John Wick. It made be cry. Wife too. And she couldn't even watch or even listen to the actual scene.

Also, John let Iosef die way too easy of a death.

Sept 2, 2018 4:47:43 GMT RagnarokMike said:

Finally caught Hardcore Henry, it's a spiffy little movie, can be a bit disorienting at times (didn't help my insomnia has been kicking my ass the last couple months). Sharlto Copely gets to have fun playing a myriad of eccentric characters, some good effects if you're into gore. Much like Upgrade, it's not genre defining or earth shaking, just a good quality sci-fi that makes the best of its premise. 4/5

Just cranked out HH as well. I'll echo Rag's comments.

Cranking movies out.

Just watched Edge of Tomorrow. Was pretty much just Groundhog Day meets Battle of Los Angeles. Entertaining enough but not sure it wouldn't snagged a spot on my Cruise countdown. That's not to say it wasn't good... It was just such a hard, competitive countdown.

I watched Karate Kid 2 and 3 on Vudu, I found out that they have free movies you can watch(with some commercials but otherwise unedited). I seen Karate Kid on TV a time or two growing up but the sequels are the ones I have the nostalgia for, my grandma married a guy who had a killer polaroid blank VHS library(movies recorded off of one of those huge satellite dishes in the yard) that I grew up watching and one of the tapes had both of the Karate Kid sequels on it, we burned that one out.

This was the first time watching these in ages. Part 2 while I liked it back in the day was pretty lame to me on this go around. Part 3 though was a blast, I love the heels in this movie and the way the story plays out, even though it's corny as hell. The final climax fight is pretty fucking great, especially with that music. I think they should have just booked another tournament though and showed how Daniel and the other guy got to the finals wrecking dudes instead of just the one off fight. But still I like this as much as the first Karate Kid if not more, maybe not as good of a movie all around as the first one but I think it's a better action movie.

Ready Player One. I absolutely LOVED this movie, easy 9/10. It captured all the magic and adventure of Raiders and other classic Spielberg movies, and put it in a setting more accessible to younger viewers today. Also one of the few dystopian future movies that's actually both hopeful and family friendly. Highly recommended.

And keeping the momentum up...

Watched Menace II Society tonight. It was alright. Doesn't beat Boyz in the Hood though.

Sept 3, 2018 20:53:14 GMT shinobimusashi said:

I watched Karate Kid 2 and 3 on Vudu, I found out that they have free movies you can watch(with some commercials but otherwise unedited). I seen Karate Kid on TV a time or two growing up but the sequels are the ones I have the nostalgia for, my grandma married a guy who had a killer polaroid blank VHS library(movies recorded off of one of those huge satellite dishes in the yard) that I grew up watching and one of the tapes had both of the Karate Kid sequels on it, we burned that one out.

This was the first time watching these in ages. Part 2 while I liked it back in the day was pretty lame to me on this go around. Part 3 though was a blast, I love the heels in this movie and the way the story plays out, even though it's corny as hell. The final climax fight is pretty fucking great, especially with that music. I think they should have just booked another tournament though and showed how Daniel and the other guy got to the finals wrecking dudes instead of just the one off fight. But still I like this as much as the first Karate Kid if not more, maybe not as good of a movie all around as the first one but I think it's a better action movie.

I had the opposite reaction.   I loved 2 and didn't enjoy 3 much outside of Terry Silver, who was magnificent (I hope they bring him back for Cobra Kai)  The premise for 3 was dumb as shit for me.   I mean Daniel had just beaten Chozen in a fight to the death, and now he wets his pants because of Matt Barnes, who's probably never had a life or death fight in his life?    Ridiculous.         

Sept 4, 2018 3:44:38 GMT 🤯 said:

And keeping the momentum up...

Watched Menace II Society tonight. It was alright. Doesn't beat Boyz in the Hood though.

Now you need to watch Don't Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. It's a parody of that genre. Not very funny though , so I probably wouldn't actually watch it. 

In the end both Karate Kid II and III are dumb as shit. If you flipped them they’d make more sense though, as how is a guy who got lucky in one tournament beating a lifelong karate student in a match to the death by waving his hands around like a drum thing? Flip the movies, Daniel gets an extra year of training before going to Okinawa, and at least his arc makes sense. I still mark hard for part II though, and the original deserves the place it has in the pantheon.

Anyway, I just watched Only the Brave. Two enthusiastic thumbs up. I’m not typically the type to stop for a movie about fighting forest fires... but it’s got good characters, good action, and makes you feel all the feelings too.

Rewatching Gone Baby Gone. So good so far.

It's also got me thinking/realizing how much I like Any Ryan. Between Wire, Office, GBG... She's great.

Gives me an idea for a countdown, UT: top ten unsung actors/actresses.

Sept 8, 2018 21:42:03 GMT 🤯 said:

Rewatching Gone Baby Gone. So good so far.

It's also got me thinking/realizing how much I like Any Ryan. Between Wire, Office, GBG... She's great.

Gives me an idea for a countdown, UT: top ten unsung actors/actresses.

Oh shit, Omar is in this too!

I love that The Wire cast is literally in everything.

And just finished. Holy shit was that good. I feel so guilty for getting GBG, Mystic River, and The Town all muddled in my memory before. All are great, but all deserve their own distinct memories.

I can't remember what countdown it was a while back, but I considered putting GBG on my list... But then pulled it because I couldn't remember if it was GBG, Mystic River, or Town that I was really recalling. Now I regret GBG not getting discussion love.

So, since moving to Mass and not having anything to do.. and especially this week with Wife being outta town for work, I've been crushing movies. At an increasingly concerning rate.

But at least they're all great so far. Either old favorites revisiting again for the first time in a long time or new to me viewings that are working out quite well.

Latest movie was Hell or High Water. Fucking dug that shit. Nice modern spin on a Western. Add Ben Foster to that Amy Ryan shout out for unsung actors/actresses.

Hell yeah to Ben Foster. I thought Hell or High Water was okay , don’t know I’d ever go back and watch it though.